Lucy Bidwell > Lucy's Quotes

“A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Learn this now and learn it well. Like a compass facing north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“It was the kind of love that, sooner or later, cornered you into a choice: either you tore free or you stayed and withstood its rigor even as it squeezed you into something smaller than yourself.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“Kabul is... a thousand tragedies per square mile.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“I've crossed paths since with men like him. I wish I could say differently. But I have. And what I have learned is that you dig a little and you find they're all the same, give or take. Some are more polished, granted. They may come with a little bit of charm-- Or a lot -- and that can fool you. But really they're all unhappy little boys sloshing around in their own rage. They feel wronged. They haven't been given their due. No one loved them enough. Of course they expect you to love them. They want to be held, rocked, reassured. But it's a mistake to give it to them. They can't accept it. They can't accept the very thing they're needing. They end up hating you for it. And it never ends because they can't hate you enough. It never ends-- the misery, the apologies, the promises, the reneging, the wretchedness of it all. My first husband was like that.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“All my life, she gave to me a shovel and said, Fill these holes inside of me, Pari.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“She was my mother and she would not leave me. This I had simply accepted and expected. I had no more thanked her for it than i did the sun for shining on me.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“Though there were moments of beauty, Mariam knew for the most part that life had been unkind to her.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There would come a day, in fact, years later, when [she] would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the street call after her child by [his] name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion--like the phantom pain of an amputee.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Though there had been moments of beauty in it Mariam knew that life for most part had been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it. She wished she could see Laila again, wished to hear the clangor of her laugh, to sit with her once more for a pot of chai and leftover halwa under a starlit sky. She mourned that she would never see Aziza grow up, would not see the beautiful young woman that she would one day become, would not get to paint her hands with henna and toss noqul candy at her wedding. She would never play with Aziza's children. She would have liked that very much , to be old and play with Aziza's children.
Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad , Mariam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Human behavior is messy and unpredictable and unconcerned with convenient symmetries.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. - Amir”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“All my life, I'd been around men. That night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Miriam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Miriam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate belongings.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“But the game involves only male names. Because, if it's a girl, Laila has already named her”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Tariq tucked the gun into the waist of his denims. Then he said a thing both lovely and terrible. "For you," he said. "I'd kill with it for you, Laila.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“I learned that the world didn't see the inside of you, that it didn't care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“Mariam wished for so much in those final moments. Yet as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her. She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident. A weed. And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back. She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian. A mother. A person of consequence at last. No. It was not so bad, Mariam thought, that she should die this way. Not so bad. This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings.

Mariam's final thoughts were a few words from the Koran, which she muttered under her breath.

He has created the heavens and the earth with the truth; He makes the night cover the day and makes the day overtake the night, and He has made the sun and the moon subservient; each one runs on to an assigned term; now surely He is the Mighty, the Great Forgiver.

"Kneel," the Talib said.

O my Lord! Forgive and have mercy, for you are the best of the merciful ones.

"Kneel here, hamshira. And look down."

One last time, Mariam did as she was told.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Sam's doctor said to him, "The good news is that the pain is in your head."
But I am in my head, Sam thought.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“If you're always aiming for perfection, you won't make anything at all.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“Men who turn their lights full beam on you for a few seconds and leave you chasing that artificial warmth for the rest of your life. It wrecks you and doesn’t leave a mark on them.”
― Bella Mackie, How to Kill Your Family

“Paths are made by walking”
― Franz Kafka

“He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.”
― Franz Kafka

“In a way, you are poetry material; You are full of cloudy subtleties I am willing to spend a lifetime figuring out. Words burst in your essence and you carry their dust in the pores of your ethereal individuality.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as 'nauseatingly miserable beyond repair'.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923